The Great British Pubco Scam. Pubs are closing all over Britain yet pubs are places that most people love and think fondly of as some of the most significant, treasured, iconic parts of our culture, places to be cherished, nurtured and looked after. Yet they're closing everywhere... WHY? It doesn't make sense does it? Read on...
A bit about me. And a bit about them. And some photographs...

Pages

Saturday, February 18, 2012

James J: Entirely predictable. And Typically Pathetic. Private wealth getting whatever it wants is pretty much all this country revolves around. Even the NHS and social housing has been hijacked and is largely unaffordable. Democracy is in tatters.

What about the unilaterally useless un-consulted and stupid plans for the fab new library?

Rough estimate of what is going to happen: New build cost of £2million (including overruns and unforseens and contingencies) to be spent on putting a building on a plot of land that is very clearly designed to be a piazza, blocking open space, creating narrow, uncomfortable and claustrophobic pedestrian through routes, completely obscuring long vistas and closing in public realm space that is vital to the general wellbeing of the community. I’ll not comment on the orchard here — that’s being done amply elsewhere.

Outcome:

.Amenity of open urban environment ruined. Half arsed architectural scheme costing huge amount of money, that could be spent on solid long term embedded regeneration, built because of some bizarre myopic closed shop decided ego driven vanity project whose practical object can, provably and readily within the next four years, be fulfilled within existing local development plans through section 106 powers and goodwill of private developers who essentially are more sensitive to what Camberwell needs, wants and could get if there was an ounce of vision or common sense around.

.Yet another exceedingly rare, once in a generation, opportunity missed to lever positive change for an area desperately overlooked (does no-one remember what was happening here before Butterfly Walk was created?).

.Thirty more years’ of avoidable stagnation.

Does anyone — you know — normal people like us — have confirmation of what’s happening to the Town Hall? EH?

Down the line Camberwell Police Station will be turned into a residential development without anyone locally having a say — this is of course, pure speculation.

The post office. Oh the post office.

‘There is nothing we can do with Camberwell because, unlike places like Peckham, for example, the authority controls very few local public realm assets’.

Bollocks.

I’ve been saying for SIXTEEN years since I set up business here that I do not want to become one of the jaded and bitter, miserable downtrodden people who moved here full of bounding optimism for Camberwell’s future — like many of the people that I met when I moved here.

Obviously — it’s happened to me too.

Oh and Dagmar, thanks for reminding me about Burgess Park.

I DO hope other people have noticed from the bus the preposterous hills the landscapers have created which will, in twenty years, be razed because they are so, errr, shit, and totally inappropriate for any setting let alone an urban inner city amenity landscape.

WHO was consulted about Tellytubbyville being formed in our back yard?

It’s difficult to keep the language temperate in a climate of such monsoon proportioned stupidity.

That’s another £6million down the historical drain — barring the overspend of course. Wonder what that’ll be.

No comments:

Post a Comment

J Mark Dodds

I’m one of the Pub Persuaders, one of the Pub Professionals, one of the People who knows what’s going on – in PUBS that is - and this blog is about pubs, why they are so important to people and why they must be preserved, reinvigorated, enhanced and remade fit for purpose for the 21st century and beyond and how they must be made sustainable so that future generations can enjoy and learn from the rich seams of knowledge that can be found on everyone’s doorstep in every humble pub – until it’s closed forever – until it’s too late and people say ‘what happened to our pub? We really NEEDED that pub!’
I’m a publican, parent and photographer with a lot of food and drink experience in some of the busiest restaurants and clubs in Britain. Since long before 2008 (when I co-founded the Fair Pint Campaign) I’ve been a pro pubs, people and places person at the forefront of the national conversation about why pubs are closing… everywhere.
I love good pubs, my kids love good pubs, all my friends love good pubs – everyone loves good pubs and I’m determined to make sure good pubs remain part of everybody’s experience - of growing up in the UK and of visiting this country.